Why Lincoln is 'Great Emancipator'

5:37 PM,
Mar. 6, 2013

William D. Pederson

Written by

William Pederson

A major virtue of Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" is that it makes clear that America's 16th president was always against slavery and that the Emancipation Proclamation was only a step towards ending it. As a longtime lawyer he understood that the proclamation could be overturned since the Constitution protected slavery. Even one of the dissenting justices in the infamous Dred Scott case thought the proclamation was unconstitutional when it was issued on Jan. 1, 1863.

Yet America's greatest presidents have been political jugglers able to pursue both short and long-term policies at the ...